Z/Web

The key problem with this film is that the setup — a woman alternately waking to find her husband dead and later alive and later dead again, leading her to realize that somehow she’s getting a glimpse of the future and he’s not really dead yet — takes way too much time to establish and the film has little to happen in the meantime. The filmmakers therefore added in red herrings which just confuse an already confusing mess. In the end things do make sense, but the journey takes too long. Too much of the film is bewildering, leaving the audience frustrated. Sometimes such a story can work, if the main character is just as confused as we are and is searching for answers too, but only in the hands of a masterful director, which is decidely not the case here. The film feels slipshod to the point of embarrassment. In several scenes the director resorts to cheap techniques such as handheld cameras to indictate tension, with the result being audience nausea from the awkward movement and a complete breakdown of the story (like the coffin scene, which was so ineptly handled it was difficult to figure out what was going on). This is all unfortunate, because the story had some potential. I liked the resolution, and some aspects of the characters was good. But it was poorly written and directed. For example (and I’ll spoil a few minor plot details here), in the opening scene we see the loving couple buying their first home. Then we see them with their children and realize that years have passed. But then they act odd: the woman’s reaction to hearing her husband’s dead is under-dramatic, and later, when her husband is alive again, she does not rush to embrace him, but simply stares at him in bewilderment. He leaves for work without any affection toward his wife: no kiss, no good-bye, not even a wave. This seems very odd. Of course the film by this point is deep into the whole “premonition” plot thing, and so we’re wondering if this behavior has something to do with that. No, it turns out their relationship is on the rocks and has been for some time. Once we understand that, of course, their behavior fits perfectly. It’s well-done, actually. The problem is that because we don’t know that in advance, those scenes feel off and don’t work for us. The film has several instances of this problem by nature of the gimmicky plot, which gradually reveals information from the future and the past. The producers obviously thought this revealing of new information would be shocking or interesting or dramatic, but because it’s all arriving out of context, it’s not: it’s just confusing or lame. A better director would have realized this and compensated by giving us subtle clues and signals. For instance, just add in an earlier scene that shows the tension between the couple — then the death announcement scene and her subdued reaction makes sense. Instead, we see it and are wondering all sorts of theories, connecting her reaction with the plot, which it’s not. It’s merely the director holding back information from us. Pretty lame and inept.

There are other problems, too. The whole “premonition” thing does not fit the definition of premonition. Instead, this is more like Groundhog Day, where every time the woman goes to bed, the next day is either the future or the present. In the future world her husband has already died. In the present, he’s still alive, but she knows he’ll die soon. Traditionally premonition is a vague feeling that something bad is going to happen, but in this film, it’s more like a vivid dream or alternate reality. That is confusing to the audience and should have been explained or foreshadowed.

The bottom line is that despite a handful of good scenes and a potentially good concept, the movie’s so incompetently written and directed that anything good is washed away to nothing. Sad.